American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman - Softcover

Matthiessen, Francis O.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 019500759X ISBN 13: 9780195007596

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1968

Synopsis

Studies the views of 5 prominent mid-19th century writers on the function and nature of literature and how they applied these views to their works.

About this title

About the Author

F. O. Matthiessen was a Californian by birth but grew up in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New York. Educated both here and abroad, he started teaching in 1927, first at Yale and then at Harvard, where he was Professor of History and Literature. He made the field of American poetry one of his major interests and wrote critical estimates of Emerson, Poe, Eliot, and other contemporary poets. He was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters and a Senior Fellow of the Kenyon School of English.

From the Back Cover

This text has taken its place as the definitive treatment of the most distinguished age of American literature. Centering the discussion around five literary giants of the mid-nineteenth century-Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman. Matthiessen elucidates their conceptions of the nature and function of literature, and the extent to which these were realized in their writings.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1968
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 019500759X
• ISBN 13: 9780195007596
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 678